Meanwhile, CCPW-1 significantly suppressed the rise in blood glucose after 30 min in OGTT. TG and TC levels of diabetic mice also decreased after CCPW-1 treatment. Furthermore, CCPW-1 showed an obvious antioxidant effect through increasing SOD, CAT activities and decreasing MDA content in pancreas. These results indicate that CCPW-1 could be developed to a potent drug used for the treatment of DM in the future.

One-dose preprandial intragastric administration of berberine delayed the rise of post-maltose blood glucose, did not affect postprandial blood glucose after glucose meal, and did not affect the insulin level in normal rats

Rhizoma Coptidis significantly improved insulin resistance, prevented pre-adipocytes differentiation. Its efficacy may be the synergistic effect of various components. Meanwhile, its role in inhibiting differentiation of pre-adipocytes indicates that coptis to increasing glucose uptake dose not cause fat accumulation and weight increasing

Rhizoma Coptidis significantly improved insulin resistance, prevented pre-adipocytes differentiation. Its efficacy may be the synergistic effect of various components. Meanwhile, its role in inhibiting differentiation of pre-adipocytes indicates that coptis to increasing glucose uptake dose not cause fat accumulation and weight increasing. This has some clinical significance in the insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

The results demonstrate that berberine treatment produced a mild weight loss (average 5 lb/subject) in obese human subjects. But more interestingly, the treatment significantly reduced blood lipid levels (23% decrease of triglyceride and 12.2% decrease of cholesterol levels) in human subjects. Collectively, this study demonstrates that berberine is a potent lipid-lowering compound with a moderate weight loss effect, and may have a possible potential role in osteoporosis treatment/prevention

The results showed that CAE reduced the levels of serum total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). CYP7A1 gene expression and its activity was up-regulated dose-dependently accompanying with the increased level of bile acid and the reduced cholesterol level in the livers of the CAE treated hyperlipidemic rats.

Coptis Chinensis is a traditional Chinese medicine herb that has the effect of clearing heat and drying dampness, purging fire to eliminate toxin. Berberine is the main alkaloid of Coptis Chinensis, and, recent researches showed that berberine had the effect of anti-atherosclerosis. This paper reviewed the anti-atherosclerosis mechanism of berberine, which may be related to regulating lipids, anti-inflammation, decompression, reducing blood sugar, and inhibiting vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation

Recently, studies from our group reported the hepatoprotective effect of Coptis and its major active component, berberine, on acute liver injury and berberine was extensively studied for their anti-tumor effect. Then we found that berberine (as representative to Coptis) could suppress the angiogenesis of HCC, in which berberine does not directly act on the blood vessel formation, but suppress the expression and secretion of pro-angiogenic factors VEGF in HCC cells

The inhibition ratio, ILS and TNF-alpha levels of mice treated with ZJW were 50.54 %, 64.91 % and 1.04 ng/mL, respectively, much higher than HL and WZY when singly used. Furthermore, the activities of acid phosphatase and alkaline phosphatase were significantly increased and the activities of creatine kinase, aldolase and lactate dehydrogenase were reduced in serum, and the expressions of Bax and wild-type p53 proteins were much higher for the mice treated by ZJW compared with HL and WZY single-treatment groups.

The results showed that the combined treatment of ER antagonists and the crude extract of coptis or its purified compound berberine conferred synergistic growth inhibitory effect on MCF-7 cells (ER+), but not on MDA-MB-231 cells (ER-).

Our results suggest that BBR provides neuroprotective effects in TgCRND8 mice through regulating APP processing and that further investigation of the BBR for therapeutic use in treating AD is warranted.

These results indicate that Coptidis Rhizoma alkaloids have a strong potential of inhibition and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mainly through both ChEs and beta-amyloids pathways, and additionally through antioxidant capacities

TA is a potent candidate in therapeutic drugs for treating gastric ulcer. Its anti-ulcer effective components and mechanism is not only related to Ber and inhibition of gastric acid, but also to other ingredients of TA and mechanism so far unknown

TCA could improve A beta 25-35 induced dysfunction of learning and memory in rats, and its protective mechanism is associated with its actions in decreasing MDA level, increasing Mn-SOD activity and inhibiting the expression of NF-kappa B in cerebral cortex